Many organizations interconnect private networks at various sites using a public network to provide for data transfer between the private networks. For example, an organization having multiple sites might allow for electronic mail to be transmitted between the sites through the interconnection of networks which is commonly referred to as the "Internet". The Internet requires TCP/IP addressing but allows for system level and user level aliases to be used to provide for more intuitive addressing of messages. An organization must maintain its database of aliases to insure the proper delivery of smtp e-mail message traffic to the organization.
In the past, maintenance of an alias database has been accomplished by providing for a central repository of alias information. All e-mail message traffic to the organization is then directed to the central repository so that the appropriate address translations and resolution can take place. This approach prevents errors from mismatched aliases or the failure of aliases to be updated on time. However, the central authority approach is very slow to respond to changes in aliases and creates a significant bottleneck in the delivery of messages as all messages must go through a single host machine. Further, the central host becomes a single point of failure for message delivery within the organization.
Another problem area dealing with electronic mail administration in prior systems involves the management of message queues. Most electronic mail systems utilize a process referred to as "sendmail" which will retrieve electronic messages from a message queue, will see to the proper addressing of the message, and will transmit the message to the public network. The message queues themselves are merely a collection of files which include header information, locking information and the actual messages themselves. Depending upon its status, a single message may be associated with as many as five or six separate files in the message queue at any one time. In the past, management of the message queues involved direct manipulation of these numerous files. This approach was extremely prone to error and was so inconvenient that efficient and proactive message queue maintenance was largely ignored. Message queue maintenance is important, however, because undeliverable messages or large queue volume can seriously tax the resources of the host machines as sendmail processes repeatedly attempt to deliver these messages. Dealing with these problem messages and other queue management issues has been a very difficult task in the past.
Accordingly, a need has arisen for an electronic mail management system that allows for the efficient updating and maintenance of electronic mail aliases and allows for the efficient proactive management of electronic mail message queues.